Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is no issue of institutionalised resistance. Considerable progress is being made on the cannabis for medical use access programme. An expert group has drawn up clinical guidelines for healthcare professionals treating patients through the access programme. These guidelines are available on the Department's website. While medical cannabis products are not medicines, ensuring that such products meet appropriate quality standards when they are made available to the Irish market is a critical aspect of facilitating safe access to medical cannabis for Irish based patients.

Officials from the Department of Health are working intensively on this issue to ensure a supply of appropriate medical cannabis products to meet the needs of Irish patients. They recently visited Denmark and held meetings with a number of government bodies and other stakeholders in the medical cannabis supply chain. The aim of these meetings was to ascertain whether aspects of the Danish programme can be replicated in Ireland, including the importation of medical cannabis products. This represents real progress.

I assure the Deputy that I will bring the other issues he raised to the attention of the Minister.

See this speech in context